



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Chap. Copyright No. 

SheIf.-i_Et\.S3Tw 


UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 

























* 





























Two Boys and a Fire 


BY THE SAME AUTHOR 


Behind Manhattan Gables. A Story of New 
Amsterdam. 1663-1664. Price, #1.25. 

LOOK-AHEAD SERIES. 

4 Vols. Price, $1.25 each.' 

Making the Best of It ; or, Tumble Up Tom. 
Up North in a Whaler ; or, Would He Keep 
His Colors Flying ? 

Too Late for the Tide- Mill. 

Our Clerk from Barkton. 

FIGHTING THE SEA SERIES. 

4 Vols. Price, #1.25 each. 

Fighting the Sea ; or, Winter at the Life- 
Saving Station. 

A Candle in the Sea; or, Winter at Seal’s 
Head. 

The Mill at Sandy Creek. 

A Salt Water Hero. 

WHITE MOUNTAIN SERIES 

3 Vols. Price, 75 cts. each. 

Bark Cabin on Kearsarge. 

The Tent in the Notch. 

Two College Boys. 

THOMAS WHITTAKER, Publisher 
2 and 3 Bible House, New York 







m ■ 


5>5|jf 1 


*1 








< < 


RESCUE I ” 

[Page 14. 


FI-UR BRIGADE TO THE 



T wo Boys and a Fire 


/ 

EDWARD AUGUSTUS RAND 


NEW YORK 
THOMAS WHITTAKER 



2 AND 3 BIBLE HOUSE 


69656 


j »r*ur y of Cora.w’e** 

\ *ViL CoPlU Kfcttwto 

* NOV 1 1900 

C#yyr<gfvt «otry 

StCOND COPY. 

to 

OPOtH DIVISION, 

COV 2i 13Uu 


?Z) 


Copyright, 1900, 

By Thomas Whittaker 


CONTENTS 

CHAP. PAGE 

I. An Alarm 7 

II. Christmas is Coming 24 

III. A Dreadful Secret 40 

IV. In the Wheelhouse 50 

V. A Comforter 65 

VI. “Fire! Fire!” 75 

VII. The Little Fellow’s Case 98 

VIII. A Change 105 

IX. Christmas Eve 109 


5 





TWO BOYS AND A FIRE 


CHAPTER L 

AN ALAEM. 

A bell rolled one heavy note out of an old 
belfry, slowly, solemnly rolling it along. As 
into a sea sank the warning, and everybody at 
the bottom of the sea, that is down in the 
street, like Jones, the carpenter, and Smith, 
the tailor, looked up and began to listen. A 
boy over in the doorway of Thompson’s bake- 
house, not only listened but anxiously began 
to count, “ One ” 

“ Two ! ” said the bell, solemnly striking 
again. 

The boy counted, “ Two ! ” 

“ Three — four,” said the bell, and stopped, 
resting in a very dignified silence up in the 
belfry. 


7 


8 


TWO BOYS AND A FIRE. 


“ Three — four/’ said the boy, and then broke 
out, “ Number four — ginger ! — Fire district 
four is over in the island where Billy lives ! ” 
He moved toward a ladder sloping up to- 
ward the black, grimy roof with its skylight 
that held in its arms about four square feet of 
heavens as clean and blue as ever tantalized 
bakers and cooks and scullions down in the 
smoke and shadows of this earth. He was on 
the third round when a heavy bass voice said, 
“ You haven’t any buns, have you ? ” 
r When Dan Bounce heard the big voice, he 
expected a big man would go with it. As this 
man was short and slender, Dan wondered if 
he could have made all that noise. No doubt 
about it, for he said, in round, heavy tones, 
“I like buns.” 

Dan was saying to himself, “ A big voice, a 
red face and a black necktie. That’s what this 
chap is.” 

“Oh!” he said, aloud. “We keep ’em in 
the shop, not out here. — My ! ” 

The bell was solemnly proclaiming again 
the fact of fire. 


AN ALARM. 


9 


“My!” exclaimed Dan, “I’ve got to shut 
that skylight.” 

“ What do you open it with ? ” 

“ Oh, we have a long stick to open it with. 
It got caught though this mornin’ and broke 
off.” 

“ The stick is no good because it sticks ! 
Let me advise you not to mind these trifles, 
but — see — look here ! ” He was going up the 
under side of the ladder, springing like a mon- 
key from round to round. Then swinging 
himself over to the upper side of the ladder, he 
darted toward the dusty skylight and shut it. 

Down he came lightly, swiftly, ejaculating, 
“ There!” 

“ Thankee ! Oh — I’ll give ye that turnover, 
or buns, did ye say ? I’ve got only a turnover. 
Buns are in the shop. Take this ! ” It was 
one that Dan had laid by for himself. 

“ I — thank — you.” 

“ You’re welcome to it.” 

The bell was now striking once more. 

In its deliberate, sonorous way, it was pro- 
claiming, “ One — two — three — four ! ” 


10 


TWO BOYS AND A FIBE. 


“ Zebrur ! If that ain’t on the island whar 
Billy lives ! I’ve got to go.” 

The man with those big, bass notes showed 
that he was of the same mind, for stuffing the 
turnover into his mouth, he was hurrying out 
of the bakehouse. He quickly disappeared. 

When Dan Bounce had closed the bakehouse 
door and stood without, he stood alone. 

“ Whar is Billy ? He ought to be round ! 
Wonder whar he is ! ” 

“ One — two — three — four ! ” the bell kept 
saying, as if to impress this fact on people, but 
very slowly, with great dignity, “It — is — 
number — four, it — is — number — four, it — is — 
number — four ! ” 

For such a calm, steady, deliberate bell, 
without the stir of any excitement, it was 
strangely exciting. People everywhere were 
affected. They were all flying about as if 
crazy. And Billy ? 

There was a little Qhurch whose stone walls 
the brilliant autumn vines were trying to 
warm up to their own scarlet flush. In this 
church sang a boy of twelve : 


AN ALARM. 


11 


a 0h mother dear, Jerusalem, 

When shall I come to thee ? 

When shall my sorrows have an end, 

Thy joys when shall I see ? 

Oh happy harbor of God’s saints ! 

Oh sweet and pleasant soil ! 

In thee no sorrow can be found, 

Nor grief, nor care, nor toil.” 

It was only afternoon light about the organ, 
kindly veiling the defects in the aged organ- 
front, and yet strong enough to show the out- 
lines of the organist’s form, a young woman. 
A boy’s head rose near her, a head with tan- 
gled brown hair, while under this crown of 
locks, was a voice sweet and clear, struggling to 
make its way up the steps of the musical staff. 

The organist stopped. “ Now, Billy, I think 
you have more voice than that. Just try and 
let it out. And you know Christmas is com- 
ing — sometime — and not such a great way off 
either, and I want you to have a solo then, and 
this hymn is sort of a-getting ready for that. 
Now, suppose we try this once more, and you 
imagine you have a bird in your throat, and 
you are going to let that bird out. Don’t be 
afraid ! ” 


12 


TWO BOYS AND A FIRE . 


Her voice was kindly, and the sparkle in 
her blue eyes met with a responsive sparkle 
from his, like one topaz flashing sunshine to 
another. 

“ I can try, Miss Carrie.” 

“And I know you will succeed. Take a 
good breath, open your mouth, and let that 
bird out ! ” 

The organ began again, and the singer be- 
gan again, and the bird came out, 

“ There, that will do very well,” said Miss 
Carrie Eliot, approvingly. 

There was silence. Into the stillness, sud- 
denly came the echo of a bell, heavy, sonorous. 
Another — another — and a fourth one. 

“ Whew-ew ! ” said Billy. “ Fire ! Down 
to the Island, too ! I’ve got to go down to 
the Island ! Oh dear ! ” 

He was standing near a low rail separating 
the choir from the church, and in his excite- 
ment, he hastily squirmed over the rail like an 
eel, pulling his cap out of his pocket as he ran 
from the church. 

“ Hif hi hever ! ” said a voice coming from 


AN ALARM. 


13 


the rear of the organ. It was a town’s-man 
formerly from “the old country,” who had 
been doing the work of an organ-blower that 
afternoon. 

“ I should say my bird had flown,” remarked 
the organist. 

“ ’E ’eard a fire halarm. That’s the trouble. 
Hi ’ave noticed it afore. Hi hasked why it 
was. ’E laughed as ’e looked up in my face, 
and said ’e had jined a fire brigade.” 

“ A fire brigade ? ” 

“ Honly two in hit, ’e and hanother boy.” 

“ A fire brigade of two ! I hope they will 
accomplish something.” 

The other member of this fire brigade, Dan 
Bounce, had rushed out of the shabby yard en- 
closing the bakehouse, and for a few minutes 
was furiously whistling in the street, wonder- 
ing “ whar’s Billy ? ” 

Then he ceased his whistle. He began to 
scream dramatically, “ Fi-ur ! Fi-ur ! ” roll- 
ing his eyes, and waving his arms. 

“ Whar’s the fire ? ” asked a man. 

“ I dunno ! ” replied Dan. 


14 


TWO BOYS AND A FIRE. 


“You dunno?” said the man, in a tone of 
scorn. “ Bawlin’ that way ? ” 

Dan rushed along to the engine house 
near by. Steamer, hose wagon and “hook and 
ladder ” had gone, all as noisily as ever, but 
leaving such silence behind. The engine house 
looked very empty. 

Again Dan began to whistle, and in a pecul- 
iar fashion, one long note with three trills. 
Suddenly, the same kind of a whistle came 
down the street, and Billy came with it. If 
his face had been tawny, he might have been 
thought a wild little aboriginal of some kind. 
Dan was stirred up to a new and intense ex- 
citement by this appearance. His arms went 
like the vanes of a windmill. He whistled 
and then whooped, and whooped and whistled 
again, and finally grasped Billy by the hand, 
and pulled him along at a frightful rate. 

“ Fiur brigade to the rescue ! ” shouted Dan, 
pompously. “Got your — Billy — your belt — 
on ? Fir-ur-r-r ! ” 

Billy nodded, pointing at a piece of red cord 
tied round his waist, and said, “ Got my flag, 


AN ALARM. 


15 


too ! ” This was a tiny “ stars and stripes,” an 
inch and a half long, pinned to the left breast 
of his jacket. 

“ And I’ve got mine,” said Dan, proudly. 
From the centre of his “belt ” also drooped a 
very much worn yellow tassel, while his flag 
was faded and frayed. 

The two boys were very different. It was 
not so much in years, though Dan was several 
years older, but in style of make outwardly 
and inwardly. Dan was stout and promised 
to be stouter, and his face was round and red. 
Billy was slender, and his face was almost 
thin. While Billy’s eyes were blue and his 
hair curly, Dan’s eyes were brown and his 
hair so straight that his mother would say 
that “ doin’ it up in papers at night wouldn’t 
put the leastest kink in it by mornin’.” 

Dan’s eyes were generally of a heavy brown, 
more as if they had been painted and ordered 
to stay so, but there was a fire in them now. 
Something of a look of horror was there too. 
It had been there ever since the bell, solemnly 
tolling in its lofty seclusion, had said, “ One — 


16 


TWO BOYS AND A FIRE. 


two — three — four.” “ Fire on the Island,” it 
said, the Island where “ Billy ” lived ! 

After the first few words of salutation, Dan 
had an air of wanting to say something, and 
yet of inability to say it. When he began to 
talk again, he was very much confused in his 
thoughts. 

“ I s’pose — I ought to tell ye, B-Billy, 
’bout — er — er — man who wanted — a black tie 
— no — er — bun — and wore a tie — and — and 
looked like — er — turnover — no, I give him one 
— and he ate — his tie — like — no, his turnover 
like a tramp ” 

“A turnover — like a — tramp?” asked the 
other member of the fire brigade, puffing badly 
and yet trying to make a strong movement 
with his legs, and so keep up well with Dan. 

“ Why, I said, he had a black face and a red 
tie ” 

“ No, Dan, ’twas a red face and a black tie 
you said, and I saw him when I was going to 
church, — and he was real kind — and he had 
two tarts — and he gave me one — and he had a 
bottle too in his pocket ” 


AN ALABM. 


17 


“ He didn’t give yon that ? ” 

“Hoi” 

They did not run far when they reached a 
street, at whose farther end Billy knew was 
a bridge, and there was some kind of a smoky 
turmoil in that direction. 

Billy stopped, as if a horror checked him. 
Then he began to run swiftly. 

“ Oh, Dan, the fire is — on the Island, I know 
— and I can’t help thinking — and ; — and what 
— if it should be my — house ? ” 

Dan wound a stout arm about Billy’s slender 
body and said affectionately, “You — you — 
now — don’t be scat. I knowed it and didn’t 
want to tell ye, Billy ! You wait till we 
know more about it. ’Tisn’t a good idee, my 
Uncle Dan says — ’tain’t a good idee to keep 
carryin’ things afore you have to lug ’em! 
You wait ! ” 

Dan’s head was clear now that he saw that 
Billy knew the fire was on the Island, and 
Dan’s duty was that of protection alone, and 
he must be calm and deliberate for Billy’s 
sake. 


IB 


TWO BOYS AND A FIRE. 


“ Keep cool ! ” said this serene protector. 
They were nearing the bridge, and could see 
the people running about in some kind of a 
thin cloud. 

“ Oh — oh — Dan, it ain’t our house after all ! 
There’s my mother, and there’s her wash-tub ! ” 

Yes, there was Mrs. Mac Arthur standing in 
the doorway of her modest home. At one 
side of the door were specimens of the Mac- 
Arthur family-symbol, those shields against 
poverty, those shelters in the storm, those 
vessels of relief, three worn and battered wash- 
tubs. At her right, was Billy’s sister, Carrie. 
Yes, they were safe. The building though 
that they were staring at was not safe. That 
was in the island fire district but on this side 
of the stream, and such a turmoil as raged 
about it ! There was a rushing of men and 
boys, and there was a shouting of voices, 
while a steamer was furiously pumping and 
then discharging a stream of water at a build- 
ing that was smoking all along its roof. At 
one corner was a flash of red fire like a very 
evil eye glaring at the people. This was the 


AN ALARM. 


19 


scene that Mrs. Mac Arthur and Billy’s sister 
gazed upon. 

“There they are! You’re safe, Billy! I 
told ye so. JSTow come on, fiur brigade ! Ha 
— ha — hurrah ! Come on, my hearties ! Go 
it, Billy ! ” 

“ Just a minute, Dan ! I’ll give my mother 
a salute.” 

Billy ran to the edge of the bridge and gave 
a tremulous whistle. He was recognized, 
and there came such a whirr of arms from his 
mother and sister. And what a kiss Carrie 
shot at him, mounting the washtub as if to 
give a good elevation to her aim. 

“ All right ! ” screamed Billy. “ I’m going 
— there ! ” He pointed at the fire, and giving 
again a whistle, he went off with Dan. 

“ Oh Billy, it’s Old Benzine’s barn ! ” 

When “ Benzine ” is mentioned, don’t think 
of a barrel or bottle of that stuff. This was 
only the boy’s name for Mr. William Benson, 
as he signed himself, a smartish trader of 
thirty-five, and that the boys thought of as a 
kind of everlasting foe. He was of a peppery 


20 


TWO BOYS AND A FIRE. 


turn of mind, and he was always at war with 
the boys, and they with him. He was forever 
threatening to “ be even with ’em,” “ to make 
’em smart,” “ to turn ’em over to the police 
and lock ’em up for good.” So they gave him 
a name, a thing at which boys are both ready 
and apt. Mr. William Benson became Old 
Benzine. Suddenly, struggling and squirming 
round one corner of the barn, Old Benzine 
himself appeared, and then a clerk showed 
himself, and they were trying to tug along 
some kind of a wretch who was hatless and 
very much disordered in his dress. This was 
an unexpected feature of the performance. 
Every boy was thrilled with a new excitement. 
The fire brigade of two danced in glee to 
think that Old Benzine had at this point come 
upon the stage. When out of the pocket of 
the wretch he had gripped, Old Benzine pulled 
a bottle and held it up, the excitement was 
intensified. “ Look at this bottle ! This is 
the man that set my barn afire,” charged Old 
Benzine. “ I found him there ! ” 

A big voice protested, “ I didn’t.” Then 


AN ALARM. 


21 


Dan and Billy saw with a new but sad inter- 
est that it was the man with the red face and 
black tie who had presented one member of 
the fire brigade with a tart, and the other 
member had given the man a turnover. The 
crowd hustled about him and his captors while 
Old Benzine was storming at him and raving, 
“You’re the reskel, you’re the villun,” and he 
in turn was declining to be thought a rascal, a 
villain, saying that he had gone into the barn 
only to see what was going on. 

“ 4 Goin’ on ! ’ ” yelled the scornful Benzine. 
44 And look at this bottle I took out of his 
pocket ! ” he cried again. 

This was considered to be conclusive. Of 
course, he set the barn on fire. A policeman 
coming up, the stranger felt a new clutch. 
He was jerked away and shoved and hustled 
on, and long ere the barn had gone down into 
ashes, he had gone down into the lockup un- 
der the Town Hall, and if he had had at a later 
hour, some of those ashes on his head and a 
fold of sackcloth about his shoulders, he could 
not have felt worse. 


23 TWO BOYS AND A FIRE. 

Such a miserable face as he soon turned in 
the direction of a pitying voice saying, “ Mis- 
tur, mis-tur ! ” 

His cell had a grated window, and the ledge 
of this was on a level with the sidewalk. The 
town boys were wont to come to this spot, 
kneel and look down through the window as 
if through the bars into a menagerie-cage, ex- 
pecting that they might see a hyena, a wolf, 
or even the Bengal tiger himself. 

Ho coldly curious spectator was now at the 
window near the sidewalk. The prisoner saw 
two very compassionate faces there. Dan and 
Billy had dropped upon the bricks, and very 
sorrowfully were looking in. One of them 
thrust a piece of paper down through the bars, 
and the prisoner took it. He opened the 
crumpled fragment and read slowly a short 
scrawl: “We don’t b’leeve you did it — weel 
stand by you ever sow sory — two frens.” 

The sentiment was Billy’s, the penmanship 
and spelling Dan’s. If two of the great an- 
gels dropping down Jacob’s ladder, had come 
to the level of this window, peeped in, smiled 


AN ALARM. 


23 


and told of their sympathy, it could not have 
had more of a welcome from the man with a 
red face, a black tie and a huge voice. 

What else did the angels on the sidewalk 
say? 

“ Would you tell him not to drink, Dan ? ” 

“ I guess not now. He’s got enough to 
think of, Billy.” 

He heard them. The angels silently stole 
away. 


CHAPTER II. 

CHRISTMAS IS COMING. 

“ And Christmas is a-comin’ ! ” thought Mrs. 
Rosy MacArthur at her washtub. 

It was a mild November day, and she was 
washing near an open window. She could 
look across the stream. Near the bank, there 
grew a maple, whose glory in October stained 
the water till it became a shining cathedral 
window. Though the glory had gone and the 
tree was bare, it did not make Mrs. Mac- 
Arthur melancholy. It meant that Christ- 
mas was near, and Mrs. MacArthur was very 
thankful. Christmas was a great event in her 
little home. It was a marked occasion from 
which to reckon, like a milestone or guide- 
board, both forward and backward, like a high 
mountain range that makes a landmark for the 
country miles around. 

24 


CHRISTMAS IS COMING . 


25 


“And what can we do, this Christmas?” 
thought Mrs. Mac Arthur. 

She drew her dripping white arms out of 
the tub, just to take a bit of vacation and 
think of Christmas. It was a happy subject. 
What to do though, was a matter that taxed 
her brain, for in the MacArthur home there 
was very little with which to do a good deal. 
She tucked her still brown hair under her 
white cap as if to get obstacles out of the way of 
keeping Christmas. If she had had a looking- 
glass, the pink in her cheeks, and the sparkle 
in her blue eyes, might have led her to think 
Mrs. MacArthur was good-looking, but there 
seemed to be little room for such vain thoughts 
at the washtub of poverty. 

Indeed what room in her life had there 
seemed to be for anything joyous ? She had 
been drawn by that magnet, a great city, out 
of the retirement of her country home in 
Maine, and went to work in a pretty suburban 
town, calling herself happy, but did she think 
the magnet might become a maelstrom ? She 
married a man in not one thing worthy of her. 


26 TWO BOYS AND A FIRE. 

We have read of whirlpools whose arms hold 
fast any object they grasp, and then drag it 
down to its grave. Drink was the vortex 
attracting and wrecking John Mac Arthur. 
When its work was over, Eosy Mac Arthur 
found that she was left a widow, and a penni- 
less one. No money or character did he leave 
behind, but poverty and a drunkard’s disgrace, 
these made the bequest of a father to his 
family. And how could the mother with two 
small children successfully struggle with the 
stream of adversity that would sweep them all 
away? Why not let her children go into 
some big home ? No, she clung to them as a 
bear to its cubs. Just let some home have 
them, a kind of loan, for a few years, said the 
old white-haired clergyman of the parish, that 
everybody called Father Manning. No, she 
had none to lend. So she hugged them close 
to her breast. To keep cubs and mother to- 
gether, she rubbed the washboard at home 
and scrubbed floors outside, made and laid 
carpets, was at parties as cook in the kitchen, 
or waiter in the dining-room — anything, every- 


CHRISTMAS IS COMING. 


27 


thing honest and decent, to keep up a home. 
In various ways, people would aid her, and she 
took their help. hTot though the help of the 
town, for she thought it small and mean in 
the town to give aid, and then tell all the 
world in a list circulated from door to door, 
how many dollars of help it had given to poor 
Tom Jennison or Biddy O’Toole. Somehow, 
she had traveled a hard, weary road of pov- 
erty, and the washtub, as a kind of clumsy 
wheel, had given her the motive power needed. 
She meant, if ever rich enough, to have a pho 
tograph taken of her tub, and then hang it on 
the wall. Sometimes she would rub the wash- 
board when life was very sad, but one of her 
sayings was this : “You will have bad feelin’s, 
but they won’t earn you a livin’.” And an- 
other, “ I put my feelin’s in the washtub, and 
drown them in the suds.” She accepted her 
situation in life, bound to make the best of it. 
“The lower down you find yourself on the 
ladder*” she would say, “ the more room there 
is to climb high, and the more credit to you if 
you git up to the top.” She saw the face of a 


28 TWO BOYS AND A FIRE. 

possible president of the United States in her 
boy’s face, and if the girls had only as fair a 
chance as the boys, who could say how high 
her Carrie might climb ? She was proud of 
her children. Two, had she ? Four, but half 
the number were with her blue-eyed father 
and mother up in a great Home abounding in 
boys and girls. Of those in the home on the 
Island, curly-locked Billy was ten, while Car- 
rie, the girl, with the great, wondering eyes, 
and such old, thoughtful ways, could count 
seven Octobers that had printed the stream 
with their shining mark. 

But what about Christmas all this time? 
Mrs. MacArthur in her thinking had gone off 
from the subject of Christmas, and when she 
got back to it, so many things seemed to roll up 
in the way of its keeping, that she had a sore 
and confused feeling of inability to do any- 
thing at all. How Thanksgiving was a sort 
of machinery that turned and ran itself. 
People were sure to send her a few quarts of 
cranberries (but not always the sugar supposed 
to go with them into the stewing kettle), or the 


CHRISTMAS IS COMING. 29 

gift would be in apple years, a barrel of Bald- 
wins, or a dozen of eggs ; and what a Wednes- 
day afternoon it was when afternoon was 
shadowing into evening, and some one rolled 
a barrel of flour into the house, or an angel 
without wings, left a turkey for the next day’s 
dinner ! 

Christmas though was something farther 
reaching. It meant to send out as well as to 
take in. There were presents to be made and, 
“ Oh dear ! ” softly murmured — yet never grum- 
bled — the worker at the washtub, “ where the 
money to make presents is cornin’ from, I 
dunno ! ” 

She now could get no farther in her think- 
ing. Her soapy hands were poised above the 
washtub, and then she broke out into a laugh 
that rippled on like a stream of cheery music : 
“Ha! — ha! Wall! I can be thankful for 
Christmas, even if I can do nothin’ for it.” 

That, I think, is an excellent starting-place 
for Christmas, thankfulness for it. Thanks- 
giving day, a time to be thankful, is a good 
preparation for Christmas, if we will have it so. 


30 TWO BOYS AND A FIRE. 

Mrs. MacArthur, desiring to return to her 
work, plunged her hands down into the foam- 
ing suds, and began to rub the clothes again. 
But hold, what had she struck as she rubbed 
away on a shirt ? 

“ A leetle somethin’,” she said, “ down there ! 
Only a button, I guess.” 

If she had felt for it, what a difference it 
would have made in the shadowed days com- 
ing ! She could not see the shadow, only the 
suds, and kept on working. “ Nothin’ but a 
button ! ” she softly said, rubbing away. 

“ Christmas is cornin’,” was the tune that 
kept singing itself in her mind, and what 
would she, or could she do toward its keeping ? 
Long thinking, much planning, a good deal of 
preparing, will make more of a Christmas, and 
what would, could the woman at the washtub 
do? 

Again she stopped working. “ I reel-ly 
must take a look at the big fireplace,” she 
said, and what that was, we shall see. 

She went to a door in the plain wall, and 
opening the door, was in a place with still 


CHRISTMAS IS COMING. 


31 


plainer walls. This place was something half- 
way betAveen a kitchen and a shed. If its walls 
had not been plastered, it might have been 
called a shed, for it was piled up with things 
that are apt to travel as far as the shed, and 
there halt on their Avay to the chopping block 
maybe. Mrs. MacArthur’s tender heart though 
could not consent to the chopping up of these 
goods, such relics as drawers that might prom- 
ise to hold things, but in their brokenness 
they held nothing, a sawhorse that never trot- 
ted, chairs standing on three legs, instead of 
four legs, fragments of ancient clotheslines 
that nowadays never supported a shirt or a 
pair of stockings, and old tubs Avhose hoops had 
rusted, but how could she burn them ? 

One other thing this strange place had, a 
big black hole. Only that ? Ah, it Avas a 
hole in a chimney, and as Mrs. MacArthur 
looked at it, there was a kindling brightness 
to be seen. Not in the hole, but her face, for 
she smiled straight into this fireplace, and as 
if a fairy, she seemed to fill it with light. 

This fireplace gave the look of a kitchen to 


32 TWO BOYS AND A FIRE. 

one wall, much as tubs and sawhorses and 
clotheslines might deny it to other walls. 

But how could a poor widow get wood for 
an open fire which is sometimes classed as an 
extravagance? Really, the fireplace seemed 
to be a spot where nothing was burnt. It 
was like all those cast off goods that were not 
good for anything once intended to be 
wrought by them. 

Wood ? The mill stream on one side of the 
Island came down from a paper mill that only 
sent splashes of foam past the widow’s wash- 
tub, but on the other side of the Island was a 
bright little river that came with a top of 
crystal over a dam, and pieces of wood might 
arrive with it. Then there was the tide, a big 
bustling fellow, that twice a day arrived from 
the other direction, boldly venturing as far as 
the dam. The tide might bring from the sea 
a lath, a joist, a cutting of a board, and what a 
cargo it was, when there arrived a piece of 
stout spar or a log ! The children would pick 
up the driftwood deposited on the shores of 
this island, dry it, and that was where the fire 


CHRISTMAS IS COMING . 33 

came from, those flames in the old black fire- 
place. 

When they had an important subject to con- 
sider, and the driftwood pile outside was a 
picture of plenty, the mother would kindle a 
fire in that old black hole. Out of the black- 
ness would flash a palace beautiful, with 
portals of gold thrown wide open. Out would 
come a flock of elves with golden feet, and up, 
up the sooty rounds of the chimney ladder they 
would spring, climbing away, chattering and 
chasing one another. Then the mother and 
the two children would sit in the golden glow 
and “ talk things over.” They would be quite 
likely to get light on dark subjects. 

“ Now lemme see ! ” she said this day of our 
story. “ Have we got wood enough for a fire 
if we start one — while we talk about Christ- 
mas ? ” 

She looked out of doors to measure the 
driftwood pile with her eye. “Yes,” she 
said in a satisfied tone, “we have enough 
wood.” 

Mother MacArthur went back to her tub 


34 TWO BOYS AND A FIRE. 

and worked away contentedly, energetically ; 
Christmas was coming. She rubbed away and 
scrubbed away. Finally she changed the sub- 
ject of her thoughts. She asked Mrs. Mac- 
Arthur where might that button be, or that 
something rubbed out of a shirt? It was 
“ Old Benzine’s ” shirt, and what a lucky 
thing it would have been had it been the shirt 
of another man ! It was though the property 
of “ Old Benzine,” the terror, the dragon, the 
fire-breathing bull, and rubbed out of the shirt, 
this thing fell to the bottom of the tub and 
there lay. Why didn’t you, Mother Mac- 
Arthur, put your hand down and feel care- 
fully all over the bottom of the tub ? Then 
you would have found — something worth 
keeping, and could have carefully treasured it. 
Mother MacArthur was not destined to be 
such a fisherman that day. FTo, she was a 
fond lover of Christmas, and she was fishing, 
hunting in the deep waters of her own 
thoughts, for suggestions about the keeping of 
the day. She now asked herself if she might 
expect help from “Uncle Billy”? This was 


CHRISTMAS IS COMING. 


35 


her brother, and the children’s uncle. Her 
hoy had been named after him. He was a 
sailor. As he was unmarried, he called the 
house on the Island his home, but he had not 
been there for years. He called it “gettin’ 
into port,” but the vessel did not arrive. He 
had not been in <£ port ” for so long a day, that 
neither of the children remembered him. Still 
every autumn he wrote to his sister, and would 
enclose “a little something for Christmas.” 
It was generally of good size, and was always 
very acceptable. He was quite likely to say 
something like this : “ I am going to get into 

port. Some Christmas I shall come up the 
river in a boat, a sort of Santa Claus, bringing 
a lot of good things with me, and give a 
boson’s whistle so the children can hear me.” 

As Christmas after Christmas arrived, the 
children would never forget Uncle Billy, and 
would imagine how he looked. He was “a 
hansum commodore.” Pie was “ a great tall 
gen’ral.” He could “run a whole paper mill.” 
He owned “a bank full of gold.” Carrie, 
with her big eyes, was famous for discovering 


36 


TWO BOYS AND A FIRE. 


Uncle Billy in every good-looking stranger on 
the street. Passing a tall unknown who car- 
ried a gold-headed cane, Carrie whispered to 
her brother who was with her, “ That must be 
Uncle Billy ! ” The next day she saw a short 
man, and he was not richly equipped, but just 
drove a watering cart, and in his left hand 
was a stubby, broken whip. A runaway horse 
though came down the street, and in the car- 
riage behind him were two scared women! 
That driver gallantly jumped down from his 
seat and stopped the runaway. “ That must 
be Uncle Billy ! ” said the knowing Carrie. 

So this mystery, “ Uncle Billy,” this Bobin- 
son Crusoe some day to come home, this 
Klondyke miner and his bag of gold, this 
Aladdin with a magic lamp, was exalted, glori- 
fied in the thought of those who had never 
beheld him. 

“ He is a very kind brother,” Mrs. MacAr- 
thur at the washtub was now saying. “ He will 

make a stir when he comes La, there ! 

I don’t know as anybody in town knows him 
except Dan Bounce’s mother and uncle, and 


CHRISTMAS IS COMING. 


37 


they never see him but once. Ah, that 
makes me think! I’ll go over some time 
and talk it over with Miss Bounce — she’s fond 
of me — and she may give me some idees about 
Christmas. It’s a-comin’, and we’ll do some- 
thing.” 

Yes, something always. Though Christmas 
is a bigger wheel than Thanksgiving, and 
might not seem so easy to turn, love gives 
the motive power that impels it, and turning 
is easy after all. Easy ? Delightful. 

“My washin’ is done,” said Mrs. MacAr- 
thur. “ I’ll empty my tub.” 

As she poured the water out upon the 
ground, did she not see something that had 
been pinned to Old Benzine’s shirt ? She saw 
it not. That “ something ” lay neglected on 
the ground. 

Dragging her tub into the house, she took 
another look at the fireplace. 

“ Wonderful ! ” she exclaimed, gazing at the 
black hole transfigured to her thought. Life 
quite often had in Mrs. MacArthur’s thought, 
its transfiguration-hour, and she always felt 


38 TWO BOYS AND A FIRE. 

that her heavenly Father helped her. "When 
she was having a hard time in winter, when 
it seemed, as she put it, “ that a good idea of 
heaven was a place where they didn’t have to 
pay rent,” when the coal bin was bare, when 
the clothes of customers were not coming very 
plentifully into the washtub, she would steal 
off to the little church behind the vines and 
look at a Christmas window. It had a picture 
of St. Mary and her babe. Such a thought of 
God’s love, mother-love in it ! The poor 
woman in that plain, almost shabby shawl 
would stand in the church aisle and look at 
the bright, radiant colors. She did not say it, 
but the smile on her illumined face would sug- 
gest this : “ I can look across the hunger and the 
cold and the winter, and see food and warmth 
and spring.” Then she would hurry off, draw- 
ing her shawl closer about her shivering shoul- 
ders, comforted. 

At this time, there was nothing in her 
thoughts that had so much sentiment in it as 
all that. Rejoicing in work and a prospect of 
more, she halted, the washtub in her arms, and 


CHRISTMAS IS COMING. 


39 


looking back said, as if to a doubting world, 
“Give me health and my washtub, and I’ll 
take care of Christmas.” 

Her friend, Mrs. Bounce, who was very 
friendly, had said of her, “ There’s many a 
woman on her washtub, what is han’summer 
than a queen a-settin’ on her throne.” 

Did Mrs. MacArthur know at this moment 
she was very good-looking ? It would have 
startled her if she had known that she was 
the object at which a spyglass was leveled, 
and at the other end of the glass was a man’s 
eye, watching and admiring her as a “ brave, 
plucky little woman.” Who was the man ? 


CHAPTER III. 


A DREADFUL SECRET. 

But that something pinned once to Old 
Benzine’s shirt and a part of “ the emptyin’s ” 
from Mrs. MacArthur’s tub, what' became 
of it? 

Billy MacArthur, the next morning, was out 
in the yard and he saw something shining on 
the ground. 

“ Why, why, a pin ! Ain’t she a beauty ! ” 
he cried. 

He picked “ the beauty ” up. It was a little 
bosom pin, and he stuck it into the breast of 
his jacket. His mother was out that day, 
meeting an all-day engagement of the nature 
of “ scrubbin’.” 

“Wouldn’t she say it w r as a great find,” 
thought Billy, “ if she knew it ! I must ask 
her what I must do with it, so I can get it 

to the owner. Can’t do it without mother. 

40 


A DREADFUL SECRET. 


41 


Won’t she say it’s a beauty? I’ll show it to 
Carrie.” 

Carrie admired it with staring eyes. The 
two children went to school together, and re- 
turned at noon to get along without mother, 
and eat the lunch she had left for them, 
spreading their butter on not over-thick slices 
of bread very sparingly. Afterwards they 
trudged to school together. 

Their schoolrooms were not far apart, and 
they started to return together, in the after- 
noon. An errand for her mother led Carrie 
to turn off from the direct home- way, but be- 
fore she left Billy, she said, “ Oh, Billy ! I saw 
a man at recess, and he had a circ’lar cloak, 
and he had a tall hat all glossy, and he was 
real nice-lookin’, and it made me think of — 
Uncle Billy ‘cornin’ to Christmas.’” Billy 
laughed, and in a wise, older-brother way, 
said, “ What a Carrie ! ” Then they separated. 

Billy’s way was across the so-called “ Park,” 
being the only thing of the kind the town 
owned. There was a path sometimes used by 
those in a hurry, for a November wind was 


42 


TWO BOYS AND A FIRE . 


abroad, and it hurried everybody home, and 
Billy took the shorter way. A row of pines 
stood near the path like sentinels on guard, 
and they responded to the rough call of the 
wind. It was not the plaintive complaint a 
lightly breathing wind will arouse, but the loud 
boom a “northeaster” knows how to wake 
up, when talking to people in a stormy way 
about wrecks along an Atlantic shore. 

Billy did not care. He was not thinking of 
these disagreeable things, but of home not far 
away, of Christmas too that was coming, and 
Uncle Billy with it. Carrie’s picture of Uncle 
Billy rose before him, the man in the circular 
cloak and glossy hat and “ real nice-lookin’.” 

Suddenly, he saw a very different object, 
the outstretched form of a man under a pine. 
How homeless that object looked! Was he 
sick ? He could not be dead ! Anyway, Billy 
must run to a man lying out in the cold No- 
vember wind and learn what he was there for. 
When he reached that prostrate form, there 
was the man with a red face and a black tie, 
and as if to identify him still more fully, there 


A DREADFUL SECRET, 


43 


was the neck of a bottle protruding out of his 
pants-pocket ! The man’s eyes were closed. 
He was either asleep or — drunk. 

Billy, shocked into a sudden horror, stopped 
and stared at the man. Then in pity he bent 
over that stretched out object. 

“ Mistur ! ” he called, pitifully. 

Ho response. 

He called again, and again, silence! He 
called louder, louder, “ Mistur ! ” 

There was a gruff reply of some kind. Billy 
could not make it out. If Billy had looked 
sharply, he would have seen two pairs of 
drowsy lids stirring, and a light as of startled 
eyes flashing out. The light passed in a mo- 
ment, and then Billy in this startled mood saw 
everything as through a veil. 

“ Mistur ! ” Billy called again. He also gave 
him a decided yet gentle shake. 

There was another gruff, indistinct re- 
sponse. 

“ Do ! ” pleaded Billy — “ Do — do ! ” 

A groan from the man. 

There was a white handkerchief — once white 


44 TWO BOYS AND A FIRE. 

— lying near the man. Billy picked it up, and 
saw a name on it. He began to pick out the 
letters. 

What — what ? “ U-n-c-l-e B-i-l-l-y.” The 
reader put his hand on his heart, for some- 
thing seemed to be striking it. The haze be- 
fore his eyes thickened. There were lots of 
Uncle Billy s in the world, but — the next word 
would settle it. 

Was there a next word ? Yes, very much 
worn; J-o-n-e-s. That was it, Jones, his 
mother’s family name ! 

An ugly faint came over Billy. His heart 
began to beat as if it were a bird’s cage, and 
the bird wanted to get out. 

Then he burst into tears. That relieved the 
pressure on a boy’s heart. He bent closer and 
called in a low tone as if afraid the wind might 
hear him, — even in a whisper he called, “Oh 
Uncle Billy — you — you wake up— and — I’ll 
help wake you — and you — go home with me — 
and mother — she’ll — fix you — up — up — Uncle 
—Uncle Billy ! ” 

The boy was crying bitterly. The man 


A DREADFUL SECRET. 45 

made no response, only the wind kept on roar- 
ing and booming in the solemn row of pine- 
trees. 

As Billy bent over the man, two big, hot 
tears fell on that red face. It stirred and then 
was quiet. The man became as a post, a stone, 
a big lump of lead. Young Billy was almost 
frantic, but the post, the stone, the lump of 
lead, was without consciousness. 

“I’ll get some one!” said Billy. “You 
stay still. I’ll come back, uncle ! ” 

It was in his mind to get the rest of the fire 
brigade, which might fairly be supposed to be 
organized for all emergencies, but could Billy 
tell Dan about his uncle’s disgrace ? The fire 
brigade had distinctly said they did not think 
drinking people should be included in it, for a 
member to put out fires promptly, must have all 
his seven wits where he could any time, day 
or night, week-days and Sundays, lay his 
hands on any or all of them. 

But after going to the park gateway, Billy 
went no farther. How could he tell this family 
shame to any one outside of it ? He then ran 


46 


TWO BOYS AND A FIRE . 


back to explain to Uncle Billy that he had de- 
cided to get his mother. When he returned, 
gulping down his sobs, where was Uncle 
Billy ? The post, the stone, the lump of lead 
had walked off ! 

Slowly, sadly, Billy walked out of the park. 
Here was a boy loaded with a frightful secret, 
and how could he keep it to himself, naturally 
frank and accustomed to share everything with 
Dan or those at home ? He must unload and 
yet where ? Could he go home and tell it to 
his mother ? This man — drunk, a Jones — her 
family name — and her brother, her only 
brother ? She must not know it, at least not 
yet. And still, how could he keep it buttoned 
inside a boy’s jacket ? 

As he left the park behind him and neared 
the stores in the centre of the town, he saw a 
light gleaming from a basement window. He 
knew what it was. He stole up to it. The 
window was grated. He stooped down, looked 
in, but saw no one. The place, he said, must 
be empty. It was not time yet for the arrival 
of the column of tramps, putting up in the 


A DREADFUL SECRET. 47 

police station. Billy held his breath a minute, 
and then whispered to the iron grating, 
“ Uncle Billy is drunk ! ” 

That relieved him, and the world was no 
wiser. The bars would keep the secret. 
They kept many sad secrets. 

Billy then went round to the bakehouse 
where Dan worked, but how could he tell it to 
Dan ? Dan though was not in the bake- 
house, and Billy turned away. He soon came 
back to the door that the baker had closed. 
Billy peeped through a knot hole in the shabby 
black door. Thompson, the baker, was pranc- 
ing round before the hot open oven, drawing 
out a batch of pies in a great hurry, for he 
wanted to slip in a bigger batch of biscuit. 
The boy put his mouth to the knot hole and 
whispered, “Tell Dan that Uncle Billy Jones 
is drunk.” Nobody was the wiser for that. 
The knot hole would not let out the secret, 
while its custodian was relieved. 

Then he stole round to the ruin heap mark- 
ing the site of the barn belonging to Old Ben- 
zine, and earlier in the autumn identified with 


48 


TWO BOYS AND A FIRE. 


one day of Uncle Billy’s disgrace. The dis- 
grace had not been in any guilt for the fire, for 
it could not be proved that he had fired the 
barn, and he was discharged from custody. 
The police though felt that he had been drink- 
ing, and the bottle in his pocket was pulled 
out into a prominence not to his credit. 

The boy mournfully looking at the charred 
timber and the ashes, whispered, “ Uncle Billy 
is drunk.” 

But standing there by that ruin heap, a new 
feeling came to Billy, helplessness. There had 
been a barn in that very spot once ; would it 
rise again ? 

“ What will make ashes into wood ? ” 
thought Billy. “ Yes, and what will make a 
man of Uncle Billy ? ” 

The case seemed more and more helpless. 
Yes, and in this steady thinking upon Uncle 
Billy’s case, it almost seemed as if Billy had 
become Uncle Billy. He was the helpless one. 
He was the one that had been guilty of drink- 
ing. And what if he, the boy, should begin to 
stagger? Yes, and what if a policeman came 


A DREADFUL SECRET. 


49 


round the corner suddenly and said, “ Sir, I 
arrest you for drunkenness ! ” What if he 
should be seen in the clutch of a policeman 
lugging him olf to the lockup ? What if Dan 
should see him, mother, and Caroline and 
Father Manning ? 

Bah, that did not taste good in his mouth. 
He shook his head. What could be done ? 
Who could help ? He looked hard at the grey 
ashes and the black embers as if they might 
give an answer. 

“ Oh — oh — pYaps, pYaps — Uncle Dan 
Bounce would help him,” moaned Billy. “I 
must see him.” 


CHAPTER IV. 


IN THE WHEELHOUSE. 

Cap’n Bounce was all alone in his wheel- 
house. Through business hours in town, he 
was janitor, a subordinate, a person employed, 
one who unlocked doors, swept floors, tended 
fires, in two large business blocks accommo- 
dating several banks and many offices. A 
sister, relict of one Bartimeus Bounce, kept 
house for the captain. At meal time he had 
a seat at the table that his sister, the mother 
of his nephew, Dan, spread three times a 
day. There, he was a subordinate. He 
was plainly looked down upon. Though 
he did not more than half know it, his 
sister was aware of it fully, and treated 
him as a secondary being. He was a planet 
revolving about her, the superior orb. Let 
supper though be over, and he would go up- 
stairs to the foot of a short ladder. He would 
50 


IN THE WHEELHO USE. 51 

mount it. From that moment, he was a 
“ cap’n,” a “ sea cap’n.” He was the superior 
of anybody in the house. He reigned up there. 
He did not take any orders. He was not a 
janitor or an occupant of a seat at a table, to 
be told what to do. He gave orders, though 
he might notice requests properly made and 
be content to let another execute them without 
any word from him. His sister at the dinner 
table might say, “ Dan, I want some sugar 
brought home to-night.” In the evening she 
would go to the foot of that ladder and say 
humbly, “The sugar firkin is almost out. 
May I let some one fill it ? ” 

But where did that ladder lead ? TJp into 
the cap’n’s wheelhouse. It had been a cupola 
projecting from a corner of the building, and 
built probably both for ornament and sight- 
seeing. When Cap’n Dan moved into the 
house, having been a sailor and also a skipper, 
his nautical eye saw what was possible. He 
knocked away the stairs leading to the cupola 
and planted a ladder there, making its slant as 
dangerously steep for land lubbers as that of a 


52 


TWO BOYS AND A FIRE. 


companion-way at sea. The moment he was 
at the foot of that ladder, he was off at sea. 
The ladder mounted, he could pull it up after 
him, if he wished, and be as inaccessible in his 
wheelhouse as any proud captain of an ocean 
steamer in his perch on “ the bridge,” solemn 
notices warning away the inquisitive passenger. 

Up in his wheelhouse, Cap’n Dan had a 
wheel, a real one, and one that would turn 
easily, which is more than some wheels will 
do. He had suspended an American flag from 
the ceiling, and in company with it was the 
Union Jack, a very natural partnership. Sev- 
eral ships’ flags were draped about the walls, 
and there was the flag of the coaster, the 
“ Susan Jane,” which the cap’n had once 
commanded. He had a picture of the Susan 
Jane in a very prominent place, and also 
sketches of several other vessels real and im- 
aginary, such as the “ Albatross in a Storm,” 
or “ The Wild Duck in a Gale.” There was 
an array of weapons on the walls, a brace of 
old horse pistols, a cutlass, and a musket. The 
cap’n would not have hesitated to use these 


IN THE WHEELHOUSE. 


53 


weapons and “ repelled boarders ” if any one at 
the foot of the ladder had shown a dangerous 
mood. There was of course a compass in the 
wheelhouse. Several charts were there, and 
let it not be omitted that a ship’s clock was 
there, which could strike all the bells from 
eight down to one and then all the way back 
again. 

He also had a spyglass. He could see down 
the river whether a boy might have ventured 
off on a raft, or whether another youngster 
was frantically sculling a dory in the deeper 
waters of the stream. Once there had been 
lighters that would spread their canvas, and 
in great dignity go down the river carrying 
actual cargoes. 

The river though had been “ filling up ” 
with various objects like cats and cans and the 
refuse of the town and the mills, and navigation 
was something very limited and puerile. The 
cap’n though would turn his glass toward the 
river as readily as if it were a deep arm of the 
sea. He made one other use of his glass ; he 
would turn it toward the house in which re- 


54 


TWO BOYS AND A FIRE. 


sided Rosy MacArthur. She did not know it, 
but he secretly admired her. He was too 
bashful to let any companion, save his spyglass, 
know of this fact. He would have blushed very 
warmly at the mere thought that any one knew 
that he, a single man of forty -five, admired 
Rosy MacArthur. He hardly allowed it to 
himself. He would take what he called nau- 
tical views of her washtub, and when she had 
left that, look with melancholy interest at the 
forsaken tub. He would watch for her Sunday 
mornings, to see her coming out of the house 
all dressed for church. She was in his opinion 
the handsomest woman in town. He kept this 
though as a profound secret away down in 
that safe hiding-place, an old bachelor’s heart. 
The only sign he gave of such concealment 
was when he thought of it, for then he blushed. 
As he and his spyglass, those two alone, knew 
of the secret, the world had no new theme for 
gossip. 

The night that Mrs. MacArtliur’s brother 
was disgracing himself, Cap’n Dan was up in 
the wheelhouse, sporting a black tarpaulin hat 


IN THE WHEELHOUSE. 


55 


and a thick pea-green blouse, having changed 
from a bank janitor to the captain of a down- 
east coaster. It was a rough night, and he 
was dressed accordingly. He had taken a look 
at “ several lighthouses,” as he styled them. 
This meant two street lights on a bridge, the 
engine room of the paper mill and Rosy Mac- 
Arthur’s kitchen window. It was still early in 
the evening, and judging by a feeling that he 
could be counted on as having three times a 
day, it was “most supper-time.” Suddenly, 
he heard a plaintive inquiry : “ Cap’n, can I 
come up ? ” 

He stepped to the head of the ladder, and 
by the light of a “ binnacle,” that is, “ barn 
lantern,” he made out a boy’s face at the lad- 
der’s foot. 

“Why, Billy, ship ahoy! Come aboard, 
boy ! Hobody on deck but the cap’n ! ” 

Billy readily climbed the ladder, and stood 
beside the great captain, who kindly laid his 
hand on the boy’s head. A well-shaped head, 
he could but think, the dark brown locks fall- 
ing over a white brow that well built out gave 


56 


TWO BOYS AND A FIRE. 


much promise for the future. Because this 
was Bosy MacArthur’s boy, there was a marked 
tenderness of tone in the captain’s invitation : 
“What can I do for ye, my boy, tell me? 
Didn’t you — or didn’t I see you out in the 
yard a-pickin’ up suthin’ ? ” 

Billy tried to swallow a big sob that would 
keep rising in his throat, and slowly, in a 
tremulous tone, he asked, “ Did you ever have 
anybody that got drunk ? ” 

“ Did I ? Bless us ! Shoals of ’em ! Thicker 
than a school of mack’rel sometimes.” 

“ What did you do, cap’n ? ” 

“I do? Ha — ha — wall, I steered clear of 
’em. I say, ‘ no, I thank ye. Hone of that 
stuff for me.’ ” 

“But s’posing you couldn’t — s’posing you 
stumbled on ’em and had to pick ’em up ? ” 
“Why, I should pick ’em up, clap some sort 
of tackle on ’em and pick ’em up.” 

“ But s’posing they had gone ? ” 

“ Gone ? I thought you said you found ’em, 
stumbled on ’em ? ” 

“ After you had found ’em — then gone. You 


IN THE WEEELEOUSE. 


57 


leave and then step back and they are 
gone ? ” 

“ That is a plain case, my boy,” said cap’n 
tenderly, playing with the soft, thick locks of 
dear Eosy MacArthur’s boy, and wishing it 
were his boy. “ If somebody has gone — if the 
craft has sailed away, you have got to let ’em 
sail. You can’t do nothin’.” 

There was silence. Billy’s heart failed him. 
He dared not tell this mighty mariner about 
that wandering craft, Uncle Billy. 

He turned and began to descend the ladder. 
He went slowly down, the captain gazing af- 
fectionately upon him. At the ladder’s foot, 
Billy looked up. The light of the “ binnacle ” 
fell on a very sad face, the captain thought. 

“ Thank you, cap’n,” said Billy, sorrowfully. 

“ Oh, you’re welcome, Billy.” 

The boy’s face and the light of the “bin- 
nacle,” disappeared about the same time, for 
the oil in the barn lantern was exhausted. 

“Oh, I forgot to say, Billy,” the cap’n 
shouted, “ if I can do anything for your friend, 
lemme know.” 


58 


TWO BOYS AND A FIRE . 


Billy did not hear him. He had left the 
nautical way of travel and was going down 
the kitchen stairs, and Cap’n Dan’s sister was 
shouting up, “ Look — look — out ! Don’t miss 
your footin’ ! ” 

“If I can do anything for your friend, 
Billy,” the cap’n was shouting down the dark 
companion-way as if Billy were still there, 
“ if I can do anything for your friend, Billy, 
lemme know! Oh, ain’t you thar? Wall, 
come agin ! ” 

The mariner turned back into his wheel- 
house. 

“ Why didn’t I say that afore ? ” he asked 
himself. “I have a dreadful way of puttin’ 
off things.” 

Glancing out of a window and looking at 
several lighthouses, especially at a beacon in 
Mrs. MacArthur’s kitchen window, he thought 
how he had put off saying even one word of 
tender interest in Billy’s mother. This brought 
so warm a blush into the cap’n’s face, it looked 
very much like a round stove cover unduly 
heated by a kitchen fire. 


IN TEE WHEELHOUSE. 


59 


Billy was hurrying home to his supper when 
he passed Old Benzine’s store. He could not 
help stopping outside the window, for Old 
Benzine was closely connected with that scene 
of Uncle Billy’s disgrace the day of the fire. 
The dreadful secret was again burdening the 
soul of the boy, and it would be a relief to 
stop outside the window and whisper, “ Uncle 
Billy is drunk, Old Benzine ! ” 

And Old Benzine was there, not to hear him 
but to see him, and as the light from a brilliant 
burner in the window fell upon a boy outside, 
what was it that flashed out of Billy’s breast ? 
Old Benzine had been missing something he 
was accustomed to wear in his shirt bosom, 
and involuntarily, as it seemed, his hand went 
up to his bosom now, just to make sure that 
a flashing ornament was not there. These 
thoughts too chased one another through his 
brain: “ I have missed my bosom pin — I 
wonder if I didn’t leave it in the shirt I sent 
to my washwoman — and is not that her boy 
outside— and I wonder if that thing shining in 
his jacket front is my pin ! ” 


60 


TWO BOYS AND A FIBE. 


The next movement was not one of thought 
but action of legs, and Billy heard the sound 
of feet coming toward him. Then he felt a 
hand roughly laid upon him, while a voice ex- 
citedly said, “ Here, boy, step in this way ! I 
want to see you.” 

Billy shiveringly followed the man. In the 
store, Old Benzine clamored, “ Jest let me see 
that ’ere pin ! ” 

Another moment it was in his hands, and 
he was reading aloud from the under side of 
the pin, “‘P. W. B.’ — see — my initials — Phi- 
lander Walker Benson — see 1 ” 

See? How could Billy help seeing it? 
It spread out and grew big as the headlight 
of a locomotive. Billy could see nothing else. 

“ How, my man,” Old Benzine was very re- 
spectful and he saluted Billy again by this 
grown-up title, “ my man, — where did you get 
this ’ere ? ” 

Billy, all eyes — and gasping — said, “ I picked 
it up in our yard — I just stuck it in here — I — 
I was going to tell my mother about it, but 
she has been away from home ” 


IN THE WHEELHOUSE. 


61 


“ Young man, young man, it is all very well 
to talk that way when a thing has been done. 
Young man ! ” 

Old Benzine had a sharp nose, bright eyes, 
retreating forehead, long side whiskers, and 
he looked something like a keen-scented ani- 
mal that had just smelt something, and he 
brought those long whiskers close down to 
Billy’s face. 

“ Now, my man, I am going to give my 
plain opinion here that — you — are — a — 
thief ! ” 

Yes, the rat with a sharp scent had hunted 
down a very rank offence, and it was the of- 
fence of that boy — Billy MacArthur. 

“Yes, a thief, and I am coming to see 
your mother about it. You may go now ! ” 

Then the sharp nose, the penetrating eyes 
were lifted. Billy straightened up. A big, 
manly sense of integrity swelled within him. 
His eyes flashed brighter than Benzine’s bosom 
pin. How they grew ! 

But he could not say anything, for his 
tongue grew also, swelled, and not a word 


62 


TWO BOYS AND A FIRE. 


could he get out. He left the store, and on 
fire with indignation rushed into the street. 

The evening air though cooled off his burn- 
ing cheeks. He walked slower. He began to 
think over the significance of Benzine’s words. 

Billy repeated some of them, “How, my 
man, you are a thief ! ” The heavy load of 
that sensation pressed upon him, and some- 
thing else was so heavy ; “ Billy a thief, and 
Uncle Billy a drunkard ! ” 

A whirlwind was in his soul. He was not 
long in going home. He burst into the 
kitchen. Supper was ready, any moment to 
be transferred from the stove to the table. 
His mother was ironing. It seemed as if she 
were always ironing or washing, ironing out 
at night what she had washed during the day. 

She saw his face. “ Why, Billy ! ” she said 
in tender sympathy. 

That soft stroke of a mother’s love broke in 
the flood gates of his soul. He threw himself 
into a chair by the table, bowed his head upon 
it, and sobbed bitterly. 

“ Why, Billy, what is the matter ? ” 


IN THE WHEELHOUSE. 63 

“Old — Buz — Ben — Buzzine says I’m a 
thief.” 

“ Of course, you’re not ! ” 

Her voice of clear, firm assurance did him 
good. 

“ He says ” 

“ You tell me about it.” Her mother-hand 
stroked the tangled curls. What boy does not 
respond to the sympathetic, pitying touch of 
his mother’s hand? Who can ever cease to 
feel that gentle stroke ? Grey-haired, still we 
remember that loving touch. 

Billy spoke, “ He says — he is coming round 
to see you.” 

“ He needn’t trouble himself. I’ll go round 
to see him myself. Tell me about it, Billy ! 
Don’t be afraid ! ” 

“ I found a pin out in the yard — and I — 
picked it up and was goin’ — to show it to you 
— but you weren’t to home — and I — I — 
wore it out — I didn’t think it would do 
any hurt — though I wish I hadn’t now — I 
showed it to Carrie. Of course I wouldn’t 
keep it. Ask Carrie ! ” 


64 


TWO BOYS AND A FIRE. 


“ Yes, he showed it to me, mother,” spoke 
up Carrie, her big eyes flashing out fire and 
love, fire for Benzine, love for Billy. “ Billy 
— Billy — wouldn’t take nothin’ ! ” 

“ I know — I see, children. Billy is innocent. 
I am — now what is to be done ? I’ll go over to 
Mr. Benson’s store at once.” 


CHAPTEK V. 


A COMFORTER. 

“Ain’t you er-goin’ to eat some supper, 
Billy ? ” said a plaintive voice by the side of 
a curly head of locks. The locks were shaken 
in refusal. 

His inquirer rolled a pair of big, childish 
eyes all round the room. "What could she 
do? She dearly loved plants, and had just 
two. One was a geranium. It hung out a 
blossom, but it was feeble. The plant was 
far gone in consumption. She brought it 
very carefully from its perch on a window 
ledge, and placed it beside Billy. Then she 
broke off its only blossom, and laid it in his 
hand. 

“ A flower, Billy ! ” 

" I know it — thank you ! ” 

Still the head was bowed. What next ? 

“ Can’t I give you sumpin’ ? Pollygobbic ? n 
65 


66 


TWO BOYS AND A FIRE . 


This was a medicine, paregoric, sometimes 
used in the MacArthur home. 

Not now. 

The big eyes spied the oven door ajar. 
Billy’s supper was in the oven. She hastened 
to the stove, opened wide the door, and re- 
moved the supper to the table. The plate was 
hot, and as it touched Billy’s fingers, he 
winced. 

“ Oh, sorwy — some supper, Billy ! ” 

Then he raised his head. The moment he 
saw the plate, he laughed. His supper had 
been badly burned. 

“Oh — oh — that’s too bad, Billy — I’ll get 
you some more.” 

“ Oh — oh — don’t, Carrie ! ” 

“ Billy, Billy, oh look ! ” 

Look where! What did she mean? She 
was pointing toward the window. 

“ See — see ! ” 

Whatever she may have seen, Billy saw 
nothing. 

“ A man, and he was er-smiling. He looked 
real pleasant.” 


A COMFORTER. 


67 


They ran to the window. The face did not 
return, but that it had been there, or some 
presence, visible proof was seen in the shape of 
three pies on a shelf outside the window 
ledge. 

Billy opened the window amid a clapping 
of hands from the female portion of the com- 
pany present. A piece of paper laid on one 
of the pies said, “For the children !” Who 
could have done this ? 

“ Now you’ve got a nice supper, Billy.” 

Yes, it was pronounced when over, a fine 
supper. 

“Now, you feel better, Billy?” was the 
inquiry of an anxious voice. 

Yes, Carrie’s sympathy was doing him good. 
Pie also had a great influence. 

“ Who do you pec it was, Billy ? ” 

“ Who do I expect that brought the pie ? ” 
He knew what he wanted to think, that it was 
Santa Claus Uncle Billy, who had come up the 
river in a boat and left this little reminder of 
an admired relative. 

“ Admired relative ! ” A disgraced wanderer 


68 


TWO BOYS AND A FIBE. 


out in the windy autumn night, and as for 
the — but Carrie was asking, “ Who you pec ? 
An angel, Billy ? ” 

“ Did you see him ? ” 

“ Yes, he didn’t have noffin’ on his head, 
and angels don’t.” 

“No.” He spoke mournfully, in an absent- 
minded way, wondering what kind of a head- 
covering Uncle Billy was wearing this gusty 
night. 

Carrie saw that in spite of a liberal adminis- 
tration of that powerful article of pie, he was 
relapsing into some kind of a strange, dismal 
mood, and she must bring him out of it. 

“ Oh, Billy, you got froo ? ” 

“ Through ? ” 

“ Supper ? ” 

“ Oh, yes ! ” 

“Well then, let’s have a fire.” 

“ Where ? ” 

“ In the fireplace. In the shimbly.” 

“ But where’s the wood ? ” 

“ I have free, four pieces I found yester- 
day.” 


A COMFORTER . 


69 


“ Outdoors ? ” 

“ Yes, out in the yard.” 

And of these three, four pieces of driftwood, 
one was a bit of pine ! It was quite dry and 
promised to burn. 

They knelt before the big fireplace in the 
outer room, their youth, their tenderness, their 
smiles, down before the old chimney, before 
the blackness, before the sooty night. And 
they made the dreariness and blackness respond 
to the merry mood of the hour. Over the heap 
of whittlings Billy’s jackknife coaxed from the 
piece of pine, the flames ran nimbly, setting 
into a blaze the other wood, and how the light 
and the warmth and youth’s bright day of 
hope flashed out of the old fireplace ! 

“ Now you feel better, Billy ? ” asked the 
capering Carrie, clapping her hands in a wild 
glee. 

“Yes, I do, but ” 

He was thinking of Uncle Billy without any 
fire, somewhere a wanderer, and Billy began 
to be sad again. 

“ Don’t you feel better, Billy ? ” she asked 


70 


TWO BOYS AND A FIRE. 


anxiously, putting her face under his and look- 
ing up. 

Hark ! The outside door was opening, and 
almost running over a washtub in their eager- 
ness, the children ran back into the kitchen. 

And there was the mother, and there was 
a man, and the man was Cap’n Dan Bounce ! 
He looked very sheepish, very much ashamed, 
and his face was redder than any fire that 
evening in the wide-throated chimney. He 
was the angel who had brought the pies, and 
in backing out of Mrs. MacArthur’s yard, what 
should he do but back into Mrs. MacArthur ! 
It was an awkward affair. He felt very 
guilty and mean, and was prepared to be hung 
for his blunder, being utterly unable to make 
any defence, but she quickly put him at ease, 
and when she told him about her late errand 
to Old Benzine’s store, that brought him out 
of his tangle. She did not tell everything, for 
there was much to be told. There had been 
quite a scene in Old Benzine’s store, the mother 
stoutly denying Billy’s guilt, and only allowing 
that he had thoughtlessly worn something he 


A COMFORTER. 


71 


had found, purposing to give it to his mother 
as soon as she returned home. 

“ I am sorry, sir,” she told Old Benzine, “ that 
any trouble has been made you. I ought to 
have looked after it, but if you had carefully 
removed all ornaments from the shirt, this 
never would have happened.” She said this 
with much dignity. 

With great hauteur, he replied, “ And allow 
me, madame, to say that I supposed I was a 
sendin’ my shirt where property — if found — 

would be — respected ” Here he bowed 

low in mock courtesy — “ And not worn round 
town by a thief.” 

“You are doing an unfair thing to say so, 
sir, and ” — she hesitated — “ and if you had the 
feelings of a mother ” 

He quickly interrupted her with more hau- 
teur and another low bow, and said, “ I can’t 
help my feelings, neither, miss, and specially 
when they have facts on which to rest.” 

This was an arrow making its wound, and 
she silently took the arrow away in her 
heart. 


72 


TWO BOYS AND A FIRE. 


When Cap’n Dan heard about this, though 
not told everything, he heard enough to arouse 
his indignation. He wanted to go at once and 
proclaim to Old Benzine just what he was, “ a 
narrer, mean man,” and “ hurtin’ a poor boy 
terribly,” and he wanted to make Old Benzine 
“ s waller all his words, and then have a tough 
time digestin’ ’em.” Yes, he wanted “ the 
whole town to shame him,” and “ a regiment 
then to surround him and shoot him.” 

It was the woman’s turn at the yard gate to 
do a work of pacification, soothing and quiet- 
ing this aroused lion. Then he in turn 
was determined he would show her that she 
had one friend who would stand by her, and 
with her walk any gauntlet she might be 
called upon to face. He did something he 
never had done to any woman except to his 
mother and sister ; he offered her his arm, his 
arm for the walk from the yard gate to the 
door of the home of Billy’s mother. 

Cap’n Dan had been very voluble, but 
after extending his arm with something of 
the grace that accompanies the swinging of 


A COMFORTER. 


73 


a barn door, he was struck with sudden con- 
fusion. 

What would his sister say if she should see 
him ? True, she was the widow’s very intimate 
friend, but might she not be jealous ? Indeed 
what if she were up in the wheelhouse that 
very moment, aiming the spyglass at him? 
And what if the officials of the banks he served 
as janitor, were directing spyglasses at him ? 
What could he say if detected and called to 
account ? Nothing. He would be dumb as 
the fish in the sea that he loved. He felt very 
guilty. A sudden tremor ran down his 
whole frame. There, in the dark, he was 
blushing as if the whole world were looking 
at him and the time were twelve o’clock 
noon. 

His companion, on the contrary, had an un- 
usual vivacity. She was very cheerful and 
agreeable. Any fear of Old Benzine, any care 
about him, had rolled off from her like a rain- 
drop from a slate shingle. 

When she entered the kitchen and met 
Billy and Carrie, she kissed each one and said 


74 


TWO BOYS AND A FIRE. 


everything was all right. “ Yes, all right, 
my dears ! ” 

Billy had caught a heavy step going away 
from the door, and intended to ask, “ Who’s 
that ? ” 

Carrie, though, was ahead of him : “ Why, 

mamma, how pretty you are! You got some 
posies in your cheeks and you look real 
young ! ” 


CHAPTEK YI. 

“ FIRE ! FIRE ! ” 

Dan Bounce was working in the bake- 
house, but thinking of the engine house. You 
will remember that this was located not far 
from the place where pies and rolls, buns and 
turnovers were manufactured for the hungry 
who could pay for them. Dan was not equal 
to such marvels as these pies and rolls, or 
“ biscuit at five in the afternoon ” or “ baked 
beans every Saturday night and Sunday morn- 
ing, : ” but he could do such simple necessities 
as the opening of a barrel of flour, or the 
stuffing of wood into the furnace. He could 
also “sweep up” and “go on errands.” This 
day, he had been opening a barrel of flour, and 
was thoroughly powdered as a miller. He 
had at times been wondering if there would 
be any fire alarm that day to call out the “ fiur 

brigade.” He knew what would happen if 
75 


76 


TWO BOYS AND A FIRE. 


anybody going to a fire alarm box, say at the 
corner of Puritan and Jerusalem Streets, and 
we will imagine it to be night, — should “ pull 
in an alarm.” This signal would traverse a 
wire going to the engine house at the town 
centre, and reach a signal gong on the first 
floor. “ One — two — three,” would be struck, 
and so on, whatever was the number of the dis- 
trict in which the fire alarm had been given. 

What next ? Dan glanced up to the second 
story windows of the engine house. He knew 
at night five men would be up in their five cot- 
beds, all sleeping soundly. At the side of each 
bed would be a pair of big rubber boots and 
pants. The latter with suspenders had been 
already clapped on to the boots, all ready for 
use. That gong, striking in the night, would 
smite with a summons the five men snugly 
tucked away and sleeping, and what a change ! 
Out of bed would jump those five sleepers, 
wide awake, I can assure you, by the time they 
struck the floor, and they would jump into 
those boots and pants, the first time trying. 
Dressing thus begun would suddenly be fin- 


FIRE! FIRE!” 


77 


ished. Then the men would spring for a slid- 
ing pole in one corner, a pole going down 
through a big hole bigger than any Boston 
alderman. Each fireman would disappear in 
that fashion, and five empty beds would be 
left behind. 

The first man that came down that sliding 
pole would rush up to “ a horse pull,” tug on 
it, and it would open a door out of the engine 
room into the stable in the rear of the house. 
Eight horses were constantly kept on hand. 
It took two to man or horse the hose engine, 
three to supply the “ steamer,” and two the 
hook and ladder wagon. 

The stable doors having been thrown open, 
the horses, trained to their work, would 
promptly tramp out to their places before the 
hose wagon, the hook and ladder, the steamer. 
The horses standing in front of all this ap- 
paratus on wheels, knew that above them 
was suspended their harness, held up by a 
“ hanger.” A pull from the driver would 
promptly bring the harness down upon a 
horse’s back. An open collar falling on each 


78 


TWO BOYS AND A FIRE. 


waiting neck, one snap by the driver would 
close the collar, while a second and a third snap 
would hitch the reins to the bits. The drivers 
mounting, — away would go the hose wagon 
and away would go the hook and ladder, the 
horses springing as if live coals had been 
dropped upon their backs ! 

But the steamer ! That showed more dig- 
nity of movement. It was kept ready for 
service, day and night. The boiler was con- 
nected by a pipe with a heater in the cellar, 
and steam was there kept up all the time. 
Fuel in the steamer’s furnace was ready for 
kindling any moment. For the steamer, there 
was “a three horse hitch,” and the three 
horses when bidden would come out to their 
stations. Their harnesses were awaiting their 
arrival, held in place by “ a tie up,” working 
in the same way as “the hanger.” The har- 
ness of each horse would be dropped on the 
back and secured, and have I said the horses 
came out to their “ stations ” ? Yes, a mo- 
ment ago. 

For a very little time was anything station- 


1 FIRE! FIRE 


79 


ary. Jim Stevens, the driver, would scramble 
up in front of the steamer, while Timmy 
Bagley, the engine man, would clear the 
steamer of all connections, and hopping aboard 
would to the fuel heap apply a match plus a 
“leetle napthay.” Ah, there was another 
man skipping to his place behind, Joe Landers, 
the stoker. 

“ Git up ! ” Jim Stevens would fiercely yell 
by this time, gripping the reins and looking 
like Jehu out for a ride against the Philistines. 

Tramp — tramp — tramp would go the horses, 
Jim Stevens yelling again, “ Git up thar,” the 
steamer thumping and bumping upon the side- 
walk, then banging out into the street. 

Measuring from the sound of the first alarm 
blow on the gong to the rattling out of the 
two wagons, it was claimed that in half a 
minute this could be done. The work of 
sending out the steamer from the engine 
house, covered a minute, blow to go back, 
Dan Bounce in the bakehouse yard, was lei- 
surely at work on a flour barrel, casting 
glances of interest occasionally along the 


80 


TWO BOYS AND A FIRE. 


street to the engine house, when suddenly 
what should drop down into this sleepy kind 
of atmosphere, but a fire alarm note ! 

Sleepy ? What a waking up ! Dan rushed 
about to find the baker. 

“ May I go ? ” he asked. 

“ Go whar, Danull ? ” 

“ To the fire.” 

“ You got anybody burnin’ up ? ” 

“H-n-o, but work is well up.” 

Thompson knew that “ pies ” were coming 
on well, and “ biskit dough ” had “ riz a leetle 
extra.” He nodded his head to Dan, and it 
was like putting spurs to a waiting horse. 

By the time he was at the engine house 
door, the hose wagon and the hook and ladder 
had each smashed out, each threatening to 
run him down and make jelly of him. As it 
was, he barely escaped a blow from the 
steamer when that thundered out. It crashed 
off, the three horses rolling round their eyes 
and throwing up their heels, while Jim 
Stevens on the driver’s box was straining on 
the ribbons in frenzied fashion, knowing that 


FIRE! FIRE!” 


81 


a big audience of delighted boys would see 
everything and would pay with liberal ap- 
plause for any harum-scarum adventure. As 
for the stoker, he banged the furnace door 
fiercely, making all the noise possible, while 
Timmy Bagley twisted his features into the 
closest resemblance to insanity that he could 
command. The eye of the public was on 
them, and it paid to be furious. Earthquake 
and volcano, provided they don’t come near 
“ our house,” are always fascinating. 

Dan Bounce now gave a whistle, the signal 
he and Billy had agreed upon, three sharp trills, 
calling, in this hour of danger and duty, for the 
other member of the fire brigade. 

Ah, there he was! Yes, there was Billy 
MacArthur ! The soul of Dan went out to the 
soul of Billy, even as the affections of David 
in Bible story went out to and took hold of 
the valiant Jonathan. 

“ Come on, Billy ! Ei-ur ! Fi-ur ! ” shouted 
Dan, in as manly a tone as he could put on. 

“ Aye — aye ! ” shouted Billy. 

“ It is pretty near — the fire — come on ! ” 


82 


TWO BOYS AND A FIBE. 


Away they went, Billy, Dan, a hundred 
other boys, chasing after hose wagon, hook 
and ladder, steamer, that somewhere ahead 
were clattering away. 

“ Oh, there it is, Dan ! It is Old Benzine’s 
block ! ” 

Yes, from windows of the block owned by 
Old Benzine, smoke was stealing, lazily creep- 
ing up as if to put people off their guard and 
induce them to think there was not much of a 
fire inside — oh very little — just nothing! A 
trifle, good people ! Oh, don’t get excited ! 
But the members of the fire department that 
wearing formidable helmets and draped in 
big military coats had come to help the five 
men from the engine house, were getting very 
much excited. The “ chief ” was pretending 
to be very cool on this warm occasion, but in- 
side his brain, his ideas were prancing round 
like the horses on their rush from the engine 
house. His “ force ” was making itself useful 
in various ways. In the hose wagon were 
twelve hundred feet of hose, all so systematic- 
ally arranged that the pulling out of an end 


i 


“FIRE! FIRE!" 


83 


followed by more and persistent pulling, would 
bring out all the twelve hundred feet, even as 
the drawing on a thread will take away all the 
mass skilfully wound about a spool. 

The end of the hose with its coupling that 
was waiting to be connected with the engine, 
waited but a bit of time. Some of the men 
were attaching one end of a suction hose to 
the engine, and the other end to the hydrant. 

When all was ready, Timmy Bagley, as 
proudly as if extending his hand to sway a 
sceptre, reached forward to the glistening 
“ throttle ” — just a wheel — and the turning of 
this opened a valve and let the steam into the 
cylinders, and then the energetic pump began 
to play and it pumped water into the hose — 
faster, faster, and then steadily, steadily kept 
at it — while the hose man at his end of the 
line of the hose pointed the nozzle gun-like at 
any point where the fire demon might dare to 
show his head or where he didn’t dare, only 
slyly lurking there, and out would come a 
stream, fizzing, bursting, splash-sh-sh-shing 
away! Oh, it was rare fun! What hot 


84 TWO BOYS AND A FIRE. 

water demon could stand such a cooling 
off ! 

He, the hose man, knew very well how to 
stop this watery gush by means of “ a shut-off ” 
at the nozzle of the hose. He understood — if 
common folks didn’t — that there may be too 
much of a good thing, that more property is 
spoiled by water than by fire. 

“ Play away ! ” bawled the chief, and though 
his big voice might not have had a sufficiency 
of carrying power, Dan and Billy insisted that 
it was just to make an impression on the crowd 
that he roared “ play away there ” through a 
trumpet with a mouth big as his head. 

Of what interest all this was to our “ fire 
brigade ” of two ! They danced about in a 
rapture, springing from point to point, osten- 
tatiously wearing them insignia as firemen, 
allowing themselves to lose one another, and 
then giving ferocious yells in addition to wild 
whistling as if they not only were lost to one 
another, but all the world, and never, never 
could be found — probably — unless yelling and 
frantic whistling might find them. In addi- 


FIRE! FIRE!” 


85 


tion to the tumult of the fire brigade of two, 
there was a clamor everywhere, men bawling, 
the chief splitting his throat as he trumpeted 
his orders, the steamer giving occasional very 
lugubrious toots, and all the while the pump 
was as steadily working as any fireman’s heart, 
making that dull, persistent “thud — thud — 
thud,” which means great damage to the work 
of the fire demon. 

The two boys saw everything, and appre- 
ciated everything. Dan was proud of Billy’s 
ready insight into the methods of fire fight- 
ing. Dan himself was rather slow to see. At 
school, he had not acquired fame as a scholar. 
He was one into whom an education must be 
coaxed or whipped. Either way is discourag- 
ing. As the chance to get an education comes 
only once, it was a pity that Dan’s teacher had 
not had more patience with him, and also a pity 
that Dan had not tried the teacher’s patience 
less. Boys and girls need a lot of adhesiveness 
that might be called school-stick. It is a kind 
of glue that pays. 

If Dan though had no shining record him- 


TWO BOYS AND A FIRE. 


self, he was sure that Billy MacArthur had 
one. Indeed, Dan was impatient of any in- 
terference with his right to think Billy the 
brightest, best boy round. 

Dan’s interest in Billy was native ; Billy’s 
interest in Dan may be said to have been 
acquired. Billy’s interest in Dan first was 
dependent on Dan’s interest in Billy. We 
become fond of people sometimes not because 
they first had attracted us, but we attracted 
them, and they would not give us up but per- 
sisted in showing their interest in us and in 
pouring out their affection lavishly. You 
know a dog may follow us and we not fancy 
the dog, but if it will stick to us and we can’t 
shake it off, its affectionate, persistent interest 
finally touches and wins us. That was the 
way that Dan captured Billy. It need not be 
said that like a dog Dan was very jealous. 
He himself always liked to show off Billy’s 
quickness in anything, but if anybody else 
might attempt it, he almost resented it. The 
jewel was his, and nobody else must show in 
any way how bright was its shining. 


FIRE! FIRE ! 


87 


“Say, Billy, how high is Old Benzine’s 
buildin’ ? ” asked Dan. 

“ Oh, I guess-f-f-s-s-fifty feet ! ” 

“ Purty good ! You beat me at guessin’ all 
holler.” 

This was one way to set off Billy’s jewel, to 
point out how inferior he, Dan Bounce was. 
Such a common stone ! 

But who was speaking next ? “ Ask that 
leetle chap how high the next buildin’ is?” 
said a man who had overheard the boys. 
“ He’s good at guessin’.” 

What interference was this ? And he said 
“ leetle chap ! ” Dan was so vexed he grew 
red in the face, and could not speak. He 
stared at the man as if he would shoot his 
eyes at him. 

Dan scowled a moment longer, and then 
turned square round and called out, “ Billy, let’s 
go ! ” 

“I don’t like that man,” he told Billy, as 
the fire brigade moved off. 

“ Say, Billy, I wonder where Old Benzine 
is I Way he acted toward you makes me bile 


88 


TWO BOYS AND A FIRE. 


over. I would jest like to have him git a 
leetle scorchin’.” 

Billy said nothing. 

“ He is the meanest, pizenest sort of a feller 
I know of. Has he ever taken back anything 
he said ’bout you ? ” 

Billy shook his head. 

“ Don’t ye mind him, Billy. I think this 
hull piece of bizness is a judgmunt on him.” 

Billy still was silent. 

“ I wouldn’t wonder if we saw him burnt 
up in his buildin’, and I’m most-er-mind to say 
6 good enough for him.’ ” 

Billy here put in a remonstrance though he 
knew that any objection was like laying a 
straw in the way of a whirlwind. 

“ Oh, I wouldn’t want him to get hurt, 
Dan.” 

“ There, that is jest like you, a leetle fool ! 
You have got a real soft heart, like puddin’. 
How I haven’t. I’m bad all the way 
through ” 

“ Oh no ! ” insisted Billy, stoutly. Another 
straw before the whirlwind. 


“FIBE! FIRE! ” 


89 


“ Oh, yes I am, and I don’t want ye to say 
I ain’t. And I would like to see Benzine git 
one good singin’, make him sort of step round 
lively and not sass boys and abuse ’em.” 

“ What did you say, that you had seen Bern 
son stepping round ? ” It was the chief’s 
voice. He came up, walking with* a tired air, 
and one could not tell whether he were carry- 
ing his big trumpet or leaning on it. 

“ Ho, I didn’t say I had seen him steppin’ 
round. I want to though — and where it is 
hot.” 

The chief did not catch the last sentence. 
His hearing was not the sharpest, and he 
looked at times as if he wished his big speak- 
ing trumpet were an ear trumpet. He re- 
marked : “ The fact is, Benson — I believe is in 

that building — cooped up — and if you boys 
see him coming to a window anywhere, and 
a- waving his hand, tell us quick, and loud as 
you can holler.” 

Indeed ! The fire brigade opened their eyes 
wide. This occasion was getting to be very — 
very interesting. It might be said to be very 


90 


TWO BOYS AND A FIRE. 


— very exciting. So much excitement was 
developing, that the boys’ attention was called 
to different objects, and unconsciously Billy 
and Dan strayed off from one another. 

Dan, interested in the trumpet and its chief, 
followed these. Billy eyed eagerly every win- 
dow in the front of the building. What if at 
the second window in that row of six — the 
second — say — Old Benzine should suddenly 
appear, all in a cloud of smoke, his face pale, 
his eyes bloodshot, his hair standing out like 
the hair of the image Billy had seen connected 
with an electrical machine at school! As 
Billy’s eyes moved along that row and rested 
on the second window, the thought of Old 
Benzine’s appearance like that of the image, 
made him tremble. 

But no Benzine, old or young, appeared 
though. People began to make all sorts of 
wild remarks. 

“ He went in a-a-flyin’ ! ” said one. 

“ Yes, I seed him a-rushin’ ! ” said another. 

“Went in awful lively to grab some 
jewelry 1 ” declared a third. 


FIRE ! FIRE!” 


91 


Jewelry ? Billy thought of a certain breast 
pin. 

“ Funny,” he said, “ if he should have gone 
in for that pin ! ” 

But where was Dan ? Billy gave a signal, 
a whistle with three piercing trills. 

No reply. The situation was this, that 
Dan was elsewhere looking and whistling for 
Billy, searching in a mad mood of jealous 
alarm, anxious lest somebody else found him 
first and wondering if — if — Billy could have 
been run over, or burnt up, or washed away 
by an impetuous stream from the hose. He 
blamed himself for going one step after that 
big trumpet and the man that blew it. Now 
where was Billy ? Dan whistled himself out 
of breath. 

Billy, who felt that he had been commis- 
sioned by the chief as window-watcher, was 
now wandering to the rear of the building, 
and all the more readily because it was thought 
that the firemen had got the fire under control 
in front. There was not so much flame at any 
time in the rear of the building, though there 


92 TWO BOYS AND A FIBE. 

had been cloudy puffs of smoke. A stairway 
though had been on fire. 

At w T hich rear window might Old Benzine 
appear, Billy wondered. How -would he look ? 
Would he hold up jewelry, a certain breast 
pin, say, in his hand? Would he call out, 
“ Thief ” ? Wicked Benzine ! 

And yet what if he were inside somewhere, 
smothered, choking, dying ? Would Billy let 
any man get into “ that fix ” ? 

“ Awful fix,” he told himself, to be caught, 
held in it ! 

Could he not reach one of those windows 
and give a yell and say, “ This way ! This 
way ! Anybody here ? Come this way — 
quick ! ” 

There was a shed in the rear of the build- 
ing, built close up to its wall. He could by 
the help of a fence climb up to the roof of the 
shed and then he could crawl up the roof and 
get to a window and give a yell, a whistle, a — 
something. Yes — some risk — but he could do 
it. As nobody was there to see any failure, 
he resolved to try. 


FIRE! FIRE !' 1 


93 


But was there, was there actually a man 
inside? Yes, Old Benzine himself! 

The building was used for a variety of pur- 
poses. In one of its sections, Old Benzine kept 
store. Up in the second story, was a small 
room in which he was accustomed to keep 
some of his valuables, retaining an old safe 
there for that purpose. A clerk, knowing the 
safe was there, had frantically rushed up to 
this room, and with the sagacity common on 
such occasions, put his arms about the safe, 
and tried to lug it off ! He quickly gave up 
the plan. Then his employer made an at- 
tempt. Making his way through the smoke, 
he had reached this room, opening it and the 
safe also, and had transferred a package of 
valuables to a breast pocket. Yes, one of 
these objects, as Billy had imagined, was the 
very pin that had been the occasion of so 
much trouble. The owner started to leave the 
room. In the meantime, the door that had a 
spring lock not only closed itself, urged by a 
strong draught, but it locked itself. Bothered 
by the smoke and the darkness, he could not 


94 


TWO BOYS AND A FIRE. 


find the keyhole, and he could not find the 
door. There was no knob to guide him, for it 
had never possessed a knob, and the door itself 
made an even surface with the wall. 

The smoke in the meantime, pouring through 
crack and crevice, was increasing. It bothered 
him. He was coughing, choking, spitting, 
coughing again. 

“ Keep close to the floor, hold your mouth 
down close, when there is so much smoke,” he 
had heard it said, and on his hands and knees 
like a bewildered animal he was crawling 
round the floor, searching for what he could 
not find. 

Must he give up the effort to find the door ? 
Must he smother there ? Must he die there ? 
He grew frantic. Death, death, and what of 
his sins ? How they multiplied ! How they 
stared at him like police officers trying to 
catch him. 

Where was that door, its keyhole, anything ? 
He yelled. He cried “ fire ” to the smoke. 
Then he cried, “ water.” 

The smoke paid no attention to either. 


FIRE! FIRE!" 


95 


And water ! How he wished he had kept his 
garden hose in the building where he could 
have attached it to a water faucet and put out 

the beginning of the fire Wasn’t that a 

good way to protect a building ? Bah ! 
“Fire! water! fire! water!” he yelled. 

It seemed to him that he was growing in- 
sane. He dared not rise to hunt for the key- 
hole, which chanced to be high up, and if he 
stayed beast-like on his hands and knees, he 
certainly would not find anything. 

What a whirlwind his head was in, or was 
not the whirlwind in his head, all whirlwind 
and no head ? Round and round he went like 
a lion chasing the shadow of his tail ! Madder, 
madder ! 

Suddenly, hark ! He heard a whistle ! He 
stopped. It came again. It steadied him. 
He turned his face in the direction of the sound. 

What was it he saw just before him ? A 
thin line of light ? Why had he failed to see 
it before ? However it was there, and he 
hailed it as a storm-confused sailor catches a 
ray from a beacon light. 


96 TWO BOYS AND A FIRE. 

He heard that whistle again, a whistle 
with three trills to it. He thrust his hands 
down where the light was. He could get his 
fingers under. Was it not the door ? There 
was just a bit of a chance. He tugged. He 
strained harder, longer. 

“ I can’t do anything ! ” he moaned. 

That whistle with its three trills, encouraged 
him, and it said, “ Pull, pull, pull ! ” 

Again, he tugged. Again, that whistle, 
“Pull, pull, pull!” 

He made one more frantic effort and the 
door flew back. Then he ran toward the 
sound, and what an object Billy at the window 
saw ! Hot so much Old Benzine as Old Ben- 
zine with an evil one inside him, for his hair 
was flying, his eyes straining, his hands claw- 
ing at the air ! 

Billy’s breath at the sight went so fast that 
he only had enough left to say, “ Come this 
way ! ” 

The object came. Billy was ahead. He 
was going down the roof of the shed right 
enough and would have reached the ground in 


FIRE! FIBE!” 


97 


safety, but the object, confused in his haste, 
rolled against Billy, and down to the ground 
they went together. 

Billy was just a soft cushion that the object 
reluctantly rolled upon. When the object rose 
and looked at his little savior, he only saw an 
unconscious lump, a face still and white as if 
in death, while a faint voice was pitifully go- 
ing, “ Oh — oh — oh ! ” 


CHAPTER VII. 

THE LITTLE FELLOW’S CASE. 

“ You see, madame, I don’t want to discour- 
age you, but I don’t like the way the little 
fellow’s case is getting on, or rather the way it 
is not getting on. I am very sorry, madame, 
for I see how it takes hold of you, sorry ! Do 
you think he himself has any idea he may not 
get well ? ” 

A poor mother, her eyes full of tears and 
the folds of a pink wash-apron, was sobbing 
profusely as the doctor talked. 

“ Do I think ? I don’t know, I don’t know, 
sir. He, he is very wise.” 

“ Too bad ! ” said the doctor. “ He is a dear 
boy. Too bad ! He seems to be sleeping just 
now, and that is a comfort.” 

In the next room, a gentle sufferer was not 
sleeping but — listening with his keen ears. 
As the doctor, like a kind-hearted judge gave 

98 


THE LITTLE FELLOW'S CASE. 99 

sentence, and stated what he feared, the 
patient listened absorbingly. He then turned 
his face to the wall, stared at the old-fash- 
ioned paper with big bunches of pink and yel- 
low and blue roses, and made no noise. His 
eyes though swam in tears. 

In a little while, a stout arm was wound 
gently about him, and he heard a voice whis- 
per, “ Billy ! ” 

Billy turned over. His eyes were still like 
dissolving pearls. 

“ What is the matter, Billy ? ” 

“ Doctor — says — I — thinks — I — I — won’t 
get well, Dan.” 

In the deep silence, everything now seemed 
to come to an end. The clock, though, an old 
wooden one, went on ticking but feebly as if 
it also wanted to stop. It seemed to Dan as if 
he with Billy had received a death sentence. 

“ I — don’t — want to,” moaned Billy. 

“ Don’t want to what ? ” asked Dan. 

“ To d-die ! ” 

The clock ticked, oh, so solemnly now ! 

“ You scat, Billy? ” 


l»ofC. 


100 


TWO BOYS AND A FIRE. 


“ Y-y-y-yes ! ” 

“You — you — hold on here.” 

“ I got to hold. I can’t get away.” 

“ I’ll be back soon.” 

Dan slipped off the bed. He felt that he 
must do something to help Billy, but how 
powerless he was ! He started for the church, 
and as it was very foggy, he seemed to be like 
a ship trying to get into harbor. 

The choir was rehearsing in the church, and 
as Billy belonged to the choir, in reaching the 
choir Dan felt that he was making progress, 
but it was a feeling and not a fact. He asked 
the janitor, who was in the tower, “What be 
they singin’ ? ” 

“ Hoh mother dear Jerusalem ! ” 

The fog was now in Dan’s eyes. He heard 
the hymn. He asked the janitor, “Do you 
know whar Miss MacArthur sets, and will 
you git me her hymnal and find that ’ere 
hymn ? ” 

He quickly went away with the MacArthur 
hymnal. 

The fog was thicker than ever out in the 


THE LITTLE FELLOW'S CASE. 101 

streets, and all things seemed so unreal, as if 
receding and passing into that strange, un- 
known life to which Billy was going. Through 
the uncertain mist, Dan ran rather than walked 
back to the Island. 

“ Billy, 1 ” he whispered to a slender form 
turned toward the old-fashioned wall paper, 
“ I’ve got something. You scat still ? ” 

Billy nodded. 

“You turn this way.” 

Dan screwed his eyes and lips together as 
if in pain, then unscrewed them and began : 
“Billy, it’s a purty good place where you 
are — ” the next word “ goin’,” he could not 
utter, but gulped it down. “It’s a mother, 
mother dear Je-roo-s<2-lem.” 

“Yes, I remember. We used — to sing it — 

’bout mother — Jee ” 

“ ‘ Mother dear ’ — Billy — and she’ll — take 

the — the — very best — care of ye — and ” 

Here Dan had a bad fit of coughing and 
sneezing, and buried his face in the bedclothes. 
His eyes shone when he came out of this, but 
he was able to go on. 


102 


TWO BOYS AND A FIRE. 


“ c 0 happy-py — harbor of God’s saints 9 

Billy, it says and ” 

“ Couldn’t — ye sing it, Dan ? 99 
“ Me, Billy — me ? I — couldn’t.” 

“ You try.” 

Dan’s eyes shone brighter, but he began to 
sing. It was a strange singing, more like the 
croak of a very sick bullfrog : 

“No murky cloud o’erskadows thee, 

Nor gloom nor darksome night; 

But every soul shines as the sun, 

For God Himself gives light. 

O my sweet home, Jerusalem, 

Thy joys when shall I see ? 

The king that sitteth on Thy throne 
In His felicity .’ 1 

Dan’s version was not as smooth as this, but 
some version he gave, though, after several fits 
of coughing and sneezing. 

“ I guess — Billy — I’ll put the stopper in here 

— but you see how it is ” 

Then with eyes big and shining like light on 
the water, his voice shaking, he went on to 
say ; “ I dunno as it is jest so but more’n like 

a pictur’, but how’s this, Billy ? Ain’t it real 



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couldn’t ye sing 


IT, DAN ? ” 


[Page iota 




THE LITTLE FELLOW'S CASE. 


103 


purty ? There’s gardings and a chance to walk 
round, and green things and oh — a river, Billy 
— and that means boatin’ — and trees of life 
a-growin’ right along. A pictur’, mebbe, but 
if it is, wall, I dunno ! It’s all right.” 

“ Oh, yes, Dan, I remember.” 

Then his eyes closed, and in a voice low 
but sweet he sang, the words often breaking : 

11 Those trees forevermore bear fruit, 

And evermore do spring ; 

There evermore the angels are, 

And evermore do sing. 

Jerusalem, my happy home, 

Would God I were in Thee ! 

Would God my woes were at an end 
Thy joys that I might see ! ” 

He ceased. He spoke again, “I ain’t scat 
now, Dan.” 

Dan stooped down and kissed him. “ If I 
can fix it, Billy, I’ll go with ye and look arter 
ye.” 

“ Thankee, Dan ! ” 

Then Billy lay in silence, his eyes fastened 
on the ceiling, eyes filled with a strange, happy 
light. 


104 


TWO BOYS AND A FIRE. 


Dan withdrew softly, looking back with a 
smile, but the moment he was out of the room, 
he was cramming his handkerchief into his 
eyes, his heart going like the pump of the 
steam fire engine at the time of the fire in Old 
Benzine’s store. 

/ 


CHAPTER Y III. 


A CHANGE. 

“ Ahem-m ! What is this ? ” said the doctor 
the next morning, as he stood by the side of 
Billy’s bed, feeling after the pulse in Billy’s 
wrist. He came out into the room where 
Mrs. MacArthur and Carrie were alternately 
looking at one another and then hiding their 
eyes behind their handkerchiefs. 

The doctor began slowly : “ Mrs. MacAr- 
thur — I — I don’t want to — encourage you un- 
duly— but the fact is your boy has a better 
pulse this morning ” 

The mother was now jumping from her seat 
and clapping her hands. Carrie, hardly realiz- 
ing what it fully meant, was jumping up also. 

“ Quiet, madame, softly ! I’ll be in again, 
this noon. Keep him and keep yourselves very 
quiet.” 

The doctor having given this order, left the 
105 


106 


TWO BOYS AND A FIRE. 


house. He met somebody at the yard gate 
and made a report to that somebody. This 
latter being rushed up to the door so excitedly 
that he tripped and fell. When he rose, he 
went limping into the house. 

“Oh, Dan,” said Mrs. MacArthur, “the 
doctor don’t give him up.” 

“ I must git used to it,” said Dan, wildly 
staring. His heart was pumping excitedly. 

He did “ git used ” to it though, and so did 
the rest. Soon, the doctor spoke confidently ; 
“Billy is better.” 

Everybody was surprised and some tried to 
explain it. Dan’s explanation was this ; “ My 
way of puttin’ it is that he was really spoken 
for and the angels did come for him, but they 
could see how much he was wanted here, and 
they made up their minds to let him stay. I 
felt ’em round, but they c’cluded to let him 
stay.” 

It was touching to see how the MacArthur 
life overran with manifestations of interest in 
Billy. Such extra hours as his mother worked 
to get him comforts and so gladly worked, 


A CHANGE. 


107 


while Carrie showed an exuberance of joy in 
waiting on Billy. Dan could not do enough, 
bringing the most indigestible things to “ start 
up Billy’s appertite,” and among these were 
two of Thompson’s hot mince pies. 

People on the Island were also very kind, 
for there were residents besides the Mac- 
Arthurs. This was not a Robinson Crusoe 
island, Robinson being the only white man 
ever on it. Half a dozen families made a home 
on the Island and showed kindness to Billy as 
if belonging to their own households. 

Benson, formerly Old Benzine, had been 
very thoughtful, not only sending, on account 
of the accident, regrets by the bushel as Dan 
said, but more than one good-sized bank bill. 
He now promised to pay all doctor’s bills, and 
when he received the insurance on his build- 
ing, he would give something handsome to- 
ward Billy’s education, for “he was a very 
fine boy,” Benson declared. 

Cap’n Dan Bounce showed his interest also 
in the convalescent boy. He was often up in 
the wheelhouse, often handling his spyglass. 


108 


TWO BOYS AND A FIRE. 


Iiis sister caught him one day leveling it at 
the Island. 

“ I’m tryin’,” he said, squinting away, “ to 
see how that boy is.” 

“ Why,” she told him, “ he ain’t round. It’s 
Rosy MacArthur herself down there in the 
yard.” 

He dropped his spyglass quickly, looking 
very foolish, and blushing like a beet. His 
sister noticed it. She started, looked at him 
sharply, and said to herself, “Wall, wall, why 
didn’t I see that afore ! Did I ever ! ” 

Her treatment of him changed at once. It 
became very tender and solicitous, as if she 
were watching a case of contagion that had 
set in. She would watch him as if expecting 
a new outbreak of spot or color. 

One day, she came up to him and kissed him. 

“ Why, sis,” he told her, “ you sup-prise me ! 
What’s to pay ? ” 

“ I’ve nothin’ to say, Dan, only you are a 
good boy, and you keep right on, right on — 
now, mind ye ! Don’t be bashful ! ” 

What did she mean ? 


CHAPTER IX. 


CHRISTMAS EVE. 

And so Christmas drew nigh like a sky full 
of color at the dawn, glowing brighter and 
brighter, seeming to say, “ Something is going 
to shine out, very, very soon ! ” 

Such preparations ! Such a buying of pres- 
ents, humble of course, but much heart going 
with them. 

Christmas eve, just as it was dark and 
people were beginning to think of the tired 
man and woman from Galilee that, refused at 
an inn, went to a Bethlehem stable, some 
hours before the angel began to sing about the 
coming of a beautiful babe, there appeared a 
boat off the Mac Arthur shore. As the tide 
was in, and a good quantity of water had come 
with it, the boat might not have seemed so 
strange an arrival, but really it was unusual. 

The first idea of anything strange was sug- 
109 


110 


TWO BOYS AND A FIRE. 


gested by the blowing of a whistle, and all the 
MacArtliurs rushed to the window and looked 
out. Mind you, not a horn, which is common 
enough, but a singular whistle ! There in the 
mill stream was a boat, while the boatman 
was caught in the act of making a change in 
his costume, throwing down an old felt hat and 
putting on a Santa Claus cap, while away 
went an old ulster, the form showing a Santa 
Claus coat and breeches ! Two sleds could be 
seen sticking up out of a heap of bundles. 

“ Uncle Billy! Uncle Billy!” shouted the 
children, and they and their mother went to 
help bring the Christmas craft ashore. 

It was Uncle Billy, and he had blown a 
“boson’s” whistle. 

“ I told ye I’d come ! ” he said. 

He came a new man. Mortified by his falls 
and his failures, he had gone from town to 
come back in God’s strength. He told Cap’n 
Dan Bounce this ; “ I really think when my 
nevew, Billy, dropped some hot tears on me 
up in the park, they scalt right in and burnt 
my conscience.” 


CHRISTMAS EVE . 


Ill 


There was another arrival just after supper, 
Christmas '-eve, and this arrival and mother 
MacArthur were alone a little while before the 
fireplace in the outer room. The arrival was 
then a departure, and took Uncle Billy with 
him. 

“ I’m so happy,” the mother told the chil- 
dren, after the interview, “ because ” 

“ How young you look, mother ! ” Billy told 
her. 

“ I feel young, and I want to tell you some- 
thing that may help keep you young.” 

She broke the news to them. It seems that 
Cap’n Dan had mustered courage enough to 
tell his feelings, and in a hushed voice Mrs. 
MacArthur gave the children to understand 
that on Hew Year’s day, she and Captain 
Daniel Bounce, two persons, expected to be 
made one in matrimony. 

“ And all live together ? ” asked Billy. 

“Yes, all live together.” 

The cap’n, she told them, could not think of 
leaving his wheelhouse, and as she and the 
cap’n’s sister, Dan’s mother, always got along 


112 


TWO BOYS AND A FIRE. 


well together, there would he one home. Mrs. 
Bounce had often wanted to open a “ pin and 
needle store,” and now she could do it, if 
Mrs. MacArthur, soon to be Mrs. Cap’n 
Bounce, would only keep house. Of course, 
she could and would. 

“ Splendid ! ” shouted Carrie. “ Pm weal 
happy.” 

“ Me too ! ” said Billy. 

Yes, everybody was happy. 

When Dan heard of it, he exclaimed, 
“ Good ! Now I can see Billy every day ! ” 


THE END. 


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